


Seasons in Hell

by amelie_drinking_tea



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Anxiety, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2014-07-26
Packaged: 2018-02-10 11:10:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2022918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amelie_drinking_tea/pseuds/amelie_drinking_tea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I remember the first time I saw you, like one remembers the first time they realize they're going to die alone. You were leaving a coffee shop, holding a pile of books. That was back when coffee shops weren't cool and they served other stuff, like cheesecake and soda.<br/>I was so hungover I didn't pay proper attention, only enough to associate you with a pounding headache, which I never got rid of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seasons in Hell

_“A thousand dreams within me softly burn”_

_—  Arthur Rimbaud_

I remember the first time I saw you, like one remembers the first time they realize they're going to die alone. You were leaving a coffee shop, holding a pile of books. That was back when coffee shops weren't cool and they served other stuff, like cheesecake and soda.

I was so hungover I didn't pay proper attention, only enough to associate you with a pounding headache, which I never got rid of.

You weren't a god, like I heard people referring to you weeks later.  You were a guy holding a pile of books, looking worried.

It's Sunday, I thought, what's to worry about? The night before, I had met this guy. I had thought to myself, that is it, this could work, he could be the one to help me not feel this wretched.

It didn't quite work out. I got bored. I always get bored when I realize people are only people.

I'm not a big fan of gods either.

The doctor had told me not to mix anxiety pills with booze, because, I mean, come on, what are you, stupid?

Self-destructive, doc, but I'm trying to get better.

Now you, oh, I loved watching you come and go on Sunday mornings. You weren't human yet, because I had never talked to you, so I could imagine you were a literature fanatic or something. I could pretend those books were the works of Keats, and Shelly and Goethe and you'd read about romanticized suicide for fun.

Your frown was due to pondering on the meaning of a self-involved pun you'd just read on a novel. In my mind, you were concerned about stuff like that.

Feuilly, my best mate, had told me to quit daydreaming so much. He'd say stuff like "R, you're gonna make yourself sick, mate, stop doing that shit", and I'd be like "Yeah, I know, I know, you're right, I'm trying."

I wasn't.

I'd complain about how people were boring and how I couldn't bring myself to be interested in what they had to say. Feuilly would tell me "Well, excuse me, you fucker, we happen to have more practical stuff going on in our lives."

"We try to do the best we can with what we got."

He kept me grounded.

Now I am trying! Really. It still makes me sick to my stomach, trying to be sober, trying to talk to people.

They are so boring, I want to put my head inside an oven and turn it on. They are the ones giving me anxiety! Hell is other people, that's as obvious as telling me I only gave you a second glance because you were conventionally attractive.

Well, who am I to dismiss beautiful people?

But since I'm such a deep person when I'm not trying to do simple stuff like getting up in the morning and trying not to burn my toast to prove to myself (to my doctor, my friends, whatever) that my hands aren't shaking and that I am fine. (I.am.fine.), well, then I'd add an astonishing personality to your angelic face.

You like the theater, and you like discussing abtract stuff like the bitterness of the insomniac. You can't sleep at night because you fear beauty is lost and you resent what is left of it. The way people go on their every day lives without attempting to give it a second glance.

That's you in my head, no matter what.

To that Feuilly would say "Well, people got to eat, R. Not everybody can afford poetry."

But all those earthly concerns were alien to you. The struggle of the common folk. Because in my mind you cared only about the ephemeral world. You cared about Rimbaud wasting his life on being sensitive and you welcomed evil into your heart with no regrets.

You would find me dead one night, probably in my bathtub, with a bullet through my head, only to make a speech about the black and red mud of our times, in which we bathe because we dare not to dream of something brighter.

But I dare to dream, beautiful angel. I dream myself out of my body, living thousands of different lives, all of them by your side, wishing to be the same as you. Clean from this trembling carcass, these bloodshot eyes. Drinking on nothing but freedom.

The first time we actually talked, I closed my eyes to your natural light. I shall not dance to real music, not now, not ever. You spoke with the rage of a million warriors because you could not accept the suffering of others.

These undeserving fools. You wanted to save them.

I'm not a fan of heroes.

I know, intimately, the ones you're trying to save. I have drunk with them, I have slept with them, I have listened to their sordid tales. They are not worth saving.

Your firey eyes are not enough to refill my dark veins.

Yet I dare to dream!

And they call me cynic. Why? My only fear is domestic happiness, my only pain is the pain of awareness. This never-ending play we force ourselves to take part on.

Isn't that sensible?

I know nothing of numbers, I know nothing of current events or the law.

So yes, I'm useless to you.

But you, oh beautiful you, you're still useful to me, filling my nights with lustful thoughts and my days with poetic imposibility.

Feuilly would say "He's trying to change the way things are around here. Don't you want change as well, you prick? You're always babbling about the stability of things like the pompous fuck you are! Now you mock his ideas?"

"Because I must, dear friend!" I'd tell him! I must! How can he tell me you don't deserve the punishment of mockery? Your fire is the fire of Lucifer himself trying to drag me down and I want to be swallowed by your words, but all of it is so well-intentioned... I'm bored again.

Deny it all you want, Apollo, you are the morning star, that's why us degenerates feel so drawn to you.

And you can call me a fool, a drunkard, the one not worthy of your time. You despise me and I still place you high in a pedestal, where you definitely don't belong because you're only a man. And you're capable of being terrible.

But I'm cabable of dreaming.

And I'm still here, relishing in that rage.

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my first language. I'd appreciate your feedback! Comments most welcomed! : )


End file.
